this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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The one that immediately springs to mind doesn't exactly fit the criteria, because it wasn't even true at the time that I was taught it in public school in Texas. But my history teacher taught me that no real historian called it the "American Civil War," and that it was correctly called "The War of Northern Aggression." And, of course, although the Confederacy did want to keep slavery legal, their actual central reason for seceding was "states rights."
Like I said, both of those are simply lies. Only propagandists call it "The War of Northern Aggression", and it was always explicitly about slavery.
The sad thing is that I believed and repeated these lies for years after that. Note that, like most people, I didn't have access to the internet to easily check things myself. Since at the time I had zero interest in reading about history, it was difficult to correct my knowledge.
It has demonstrated, to me at least, the importance of keeping propaganda away from children. The more you lie to children, the harder it will be for them to become functioning adults.
I was taught it was about states rights, too. In Kentucky, they were less forceful about calling it the "war of northern aggression.
Did you get taught that some slaves liked being slaves because it meant all their needs were met and they didn't have to worry about anything?
I don't recall specifically being taught that, but I do recall believing that was a fact at the time, so it is very likely that I was taught that in class.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple of slaves like that, but even so, it's a misleading statement. I actually think that using the truth to lie is a worse sin than just outright lying, because it's easier to mislead more people like that.
Somewhere Bibi is frowning sternly at you